Unbreakable
by PinataParty
Summary: Another typical ghost hunt, until their ghost turns out to be not a ghost at all. When a strange man comes to their rescue, Sam and Dean are thrust into a strange new world of monsters that shouldn't exist on this side of the Atlantic. They team up with an Englishman, a mysterious woman, and a girl who's much too sunny for them both. Before the end of S8 and pre-S9, AU-ish.
1. Grave to Table

**Author's Note:**I'm trying to keep this from being "exactly what you'd expect". Part of the allure of SPN is the adventure, so I'm trying to cast some light on overlooked monsters and lore that would be super freaking cool to see the Winchesters go up against. I came up with female characters and decided it'd be too easy to think everyone gets paired off, so I changed it up a bit. I'll only keep writing if there's interest, I only ever write when there's interest. Let me know if it's worth it to keep it going. I also am totally open to feedback and critiquing, sometimes I don't notice my own mistakes so please feel free to point them out in a comment and I'll always fix them. Enjoy!

**Chapter 1: Grave to Table**

The wooden floorboards of the old, dilapidated house creaked under Sam's feet as he walked carefully across the threshold of the door and into the foyer. Floral wallpaper had browned with age long ago, strips had begun to separate themselves from the wall, there were places in the floor where boards had rotted through or were missing all together. Old 1940s furniture was covered in a thick layer of dust, the entire house reeked of mildew and age. In other words, a typical house you would find the Winchesters walking through in the middle of the night.

Dean followed him closely, shotgun pointed at the ground. He looked around the house and made a disgusted noise, "This place is creepy."

"Yeah, Dean, they're always creepy," Sam crept further into the house, "The news report said the guy was found dead in the middle of the living room, chest opened and heart gone. He's the fifth murder like this in ten years."

"And the witness said it was a crazy woman who lived in the house." 'The problem with that part,' Dean thought, 'is that this house has been abandoned since the 40s.'

"They dismissed the witness as being shell-shocked, she changed her story after that," Sam stood in the middle of the living room now and stared down at the blackened bloodstain on the oriental rug, "It only ever attacks men, there have been no female deaths from this thing."

"Well then this is a great place for a pair of brothers to be, ain't it?" Dean stared at the stain on the ground, "Let's find us some bones."

Sam started to walk towards the basement door, "County records say she was buried in her own basement when she died. Alma Finch, died in 1941, heart failure, neighbors were quoted in the obituary saying she died of a broken heart after her husband was killed. She was only forty-two."

It was sad, the woman's story, but now she was back from the dead and haunting the place, killing people who thought it would be fun to sneak around and old, creepy house.

Footsteps sounded upstairs, slow and deliberate. Dean whirled and pointed the shotgun at the stairs, Sam pushed his back against Dean's and aimed at the cabinet entry leading to the basement. It walked slowly down the stairs, skin gray and sickly. Her dress was shredded and tattered, mucky with dirt. Alma's hair hung in thick, greasy clumps onto her shoulder, but it was her face that freaked them out the most. Her eyes were twice the size they should have been, pupils wide and rimmed in a yellow iris. Her lips were cut up, teeth chipped and jaw seemed to be disconnected from the top half of her skull.

Dean fired instinctively, mostly out of fear, and the shards of rock salt struck the thing square in the chest. Except she didn't disappear or fade away.

"What the hell?" Dean started to say, but the creature wrenched his gun away and lifted a hand to rake talon-like fingernails across his face. He screamed, Sam turned and fired once, twice, but nothing happened.

The creature's jaw seemed to unhinge and it let out a blood-curdling noise unlike anything they had ever heard before. It lunged at Sam and he ducked its claws, causing the thing to scream again. Sam grabbed Dean and they made for the door, but Dean broke free and lunged forwards to grab the shotguns first. Alma rushed him, both hands outstretched for his neck.

The back door burst open with a crash and someone ran forwards, an opened flask in their hand, and started throwing liquid – it looked like water – at the thing. It shrieked and dropped into a crouch, trying to shield itself, but the figure kept hurling liquid at it. Finally, the thing ran – an unearthly motion, jerky and on all fours like a dog – upstairs. They could still hear the skittering across the floor and then a sudden stillness.

Nobody moved for a moment, Dean finally shifted his gaze downwards to the figure. It was a man, tall and built lean, dark-skinned with deep brown eyes. He was dressed in a long, black trench coat and slacks, the only visible sign he was in the room was the white dress shirt he wore under the coat. He screwed the cap back on the silver flask and said nothing, watching them.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean asked, getting to his feet. He positioned himself warily, Sam took a step forwards and narrowed his eyes at the man. Dean brushed a trickle of blood from his cheek.

His lips twitched into a small half-smile and he slipped the flask into his pocket, extending a hand, "An enthusiastic like-minded individual," his voice had an English accent to it, BBC English would be the informal term, "Grayson Thomas, Gray is fine if you prefer it."

Dean slowly lifted his hand and grasped Grayson's firmly, "Dean Winchester, my brother Sam. You're a hunter?"

"Of sorts," Grayson inclined his head once.

"What the hell was that thing?" Sam jerked his thumb to the ceiling, they started to hear movement upstairs again and everyone looked up.

"Maybe we should take this outside," Grayson ushered them quickly out the front door and walked down the steps into the front lawn. The street was dark, littered with older houses, many abandoned a long time ago. A modern-classic black Mustang was parked behind the Impala, someone sat in the driver's seat, but didn't get out of the car when they came outside.

Sam stared at the car for a moment before turning back to Grayson, "So, what is that thing?"

He cleared his throat and brushed his hands together lightly, "It's called a bean sidhe. They're Norse demons, souls of persons who have died and refuse to rest," he looked up and from Winchester to Winchester, "They cannot leave their graves, but they can become so twisted they no longer stick to just little scares. It seems to me this one has become very twisted indeed."

"A bean sidhe? I've never heard of that," Dean's voice was hard, like he didn't believe Grayson, "How did you know it was here? What was that stuff you threw on it?"

"You're not the only ones with access to a newspaper and training as a supernatural hunter," Grayson's eyes fixed on him and he pulled the flask from his pocket, "It's grain alcohol, mint, and rosemary. They're repelled by it, it hurts their skin. Not unlike a typical demon to holy water, except these are not as intelligent as your standard hell-grade demon."

"If you're a hunter with this kind of knowledge, how come I've never heard of you?" Dean took a step towards him, more aggressive, his voice raised.

The door to the Mustang slammed shut and footsteps clicked on the pavement, "Gray, is everything all right?" A woman's voice, fringed with an Irish accent that had been in America for too long.

Sam turned and saw who walked towards them, he said nothing, just stared at her. She was slender, tall as Dean, and her skin was the color of peaches and cream. Rich green eyes stared at Grayson, thick black hair naturally set in wide, cascading curls was tied over her shoulder in a fishtail braid. Her hands were shoved in the pouch pockets of a dark gray hoodie, dark skinny jeans tucked into knee-high black boots. Her stride towards them was confident and cool, like her entire demeanor. The woman radiated collected, the air around her hung so heavy with her reassurance in herself that even Sam found himself being less tense.

Dean turned to follow Grayson's gaze and stared at her, letting out a slight whistle. Sam reached back and thwacked him in the gut with the back of his hand. Grayson smiled at her with so much warmth, it gave him away. He extended his hand to her and she took it for a moment just for reassurance, looking over at the Winchesters with calculating eyes.

"She's with you?" Dean asked, Grayson nodded, and Dean whistled again, "I'm hunting with the wrong partner."

The woman's lips seemed perpetually curled in a whisper of a smile, she didn't change her expression, just extended her hand, "Rosewitha Reed. I go by Rose among close friends and family, you two are neither so please use my full name."

Sam gave her a strained smile and shook it first, "Sam Winchester."

"Dean," he let his hand linger longer than it should have and smiled at her in a, as he would have said, winning sort of way.

She did not seem terribly phased at all, "Is everything okay?" it was a question for Grayson, not for them.

"Fine, darling," Grayson patted her upper arm gently, "Just explaining the lore of bean sidhe."

Sam pointed absently at her, "Why didn't you go inside with him?"

"We saw your car, heard shots, and knew you weren't actually equipped to handle something that shows up so rarely Stateside." Rosewitha looked up at the house and thought she caught a glimpse of the woman, "He explained how she came to be?"

"Yeah, tormented ghost becomes grave camping nightmare," Sam said, "So how do we kill it?"

"_You_ don't, _I_ do," she sighed heavily and looked over at Grayson with something akin to a glimmer in her eyes, "Shall we go get ourselves prepared?"

He nodded and smiled at the boys, "I'm afraid here is where we part ways, gentlemen. We can handle this case from here, thanks. A pleasure," he extended his hand and neither of them took it.

Dean held up his hand to pause the situation, not to shake, "Now, wait just a second. We're the ones who show up here to kill this thing, you bust in the back door, give us some half-assed explanation, and then expect us to just walk away and leave it to you?" he shook his head, "No, I don't think so. How about instead, you tell us how we can kill this thing in case there's another one somewhere that we end up going for?"

Rosewitha and Grayson shared a look and he gave her an almost imperceptible not, "All right, you bring up a valid point. I will warn you, though, these things show up in the States maybe once in a human lifespan. They're very uncommon, you may never see one again in your entire life."

"How does it even get here?" Sam said, "I mean besides the whole vengeful corpse thing. That usually just creates a vengeful spirit."

Grayson sighed and gestured to the vehicles, "If you would be so kind, we can go back to our hotel and Rose can explain better."

Something passed between Grayson and Rosewitha then, something secret. Sam and Dean watched them walk to their car and exchanged a skeptical glance, "You sure this is a good idea?" Dean muttered.

"Not even a little, but we don't know how to kill this thing so we're useless until they tell us how to do it." Sam sighed, "It'll be faster to learn from someone who seems to have done it than comb through a library for a few months."

They got in the car and Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket as they followed the Mustang down the dimly lit small-town streets of Mooreland, Oklahoma, "Hey, Garth. I got a question for you. What can you tell me about a Rosewitha Reed and Grayson Thomas?"

"Rose and Gray?" Garth said, "Oh they're pretty badass, actually. Not hunters in America, they're from the other side of the Atlantic. Rose is from Ireland, Gray is London born, both are Oxford educated, and insanely cool. They haven't been back in the states for like four years, why?"

Dean frowned, "We ran into them on a hunt in Oklahoma."

"Huh. What kind of hunt?"

"Something I've never seen before, they called it a, uh," Dean looked over at Sam and snapped to help him remember.

"bean sidhe," Sam answered him with a sigh.

"A bean sidhe. I've never seen one before, they said they don't show up here much."

"Oh. Well that explains a lot more," Garth said, "They're probably helping out with the spike in weird supes we've never dealt with before. One of my other guys ran into them while hunting what he thought was a Siren. Turned out to be something called a Gancanagh, like an Irish version of a siren. Except it's a guy."

"Spike in weird what?"

"Supes. Oh, ha, sorry, it's the slang I'm trying to use for supernatural stuff." Garth laughed heavily into the phone, "There's been a lot of weird stuff popping up. Not a lot, just four weird cases in the last five months. I think Rose came over first, one of my other guys asked me about her after the first weird thing."

"So you're sure they're the real deal? Not just Gordon-style crazies luring us into the back woods for sport?"

"Yeah, you're in good hands with them. Hey, tell them hi for me." Garth said before hanging up.

Dean made a face at Sam and dropped the phone onto the middle of the front seat, "Garth says they're kosher."

"Yeah, well, I'm not so sure about that still," Sam said, leaning his arm against the door.

Eventually the Mustang pulled off into the parking lot of a Comfort Inn and they parked, heading inside and into the elevator. Silence sat in plain sight the whole time, nobody said anything. Grayson led them to one of the rooms and the magnetic lock cheeped when he used the key card and the door swung inward.

Another girl, younger than Rose, sat at the room's desk, feet up on the chair, a laptop open in front of her. She had a pair of headphones on, but didn't appear to be anything terribly important. She held a piece of pizza in her hand and was staring at the screen so intently she had stopped chewing. Finally, the girl saw movement of Grayson and Rose into the room in her peripheral and jerked her head sharply to the door. Her ash blond hair, tied up in a ponytail and bangs pinned to the side away from her face, swished back and forth. Bright blue eyes crinkled at the corners with her mouthful-of-pizza smile, but immediately dropped into a frown when she examined Sam and Dean. The girl wasn't a girl, she was a young woman who also happened to be short and petite. The girl brushed crumbs off her olive green t-shirt and black running shorts, pulling the headphones off to rest around her neck. She unplugged them and closed the laptop, loosely draping the wire around her neck.

Sam closed the door behind him and watched Rose pull a thick, dark leather book from a drawer in the kitchenette. The room was a suite, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a common area, and a small kitchen. The common area had Xeroxed pages scattered on the coffee table, stacks of books sat on the breakfast bar and two other laptops on the kitchen table. They appeared to have been in Mooreland for a while by the looks of it.

The young woman smiled again when Gray gave her a swift hug and turned back to the Winchesters, "Sam, Dean, this is Ellie Lord. She works with us frequently when we need an extra set of hands. Lately, we've needed a lot of extra hands." He smiled at her fondly, the way a parent would smile at a child.

Sam would have pegged her for nineteen at first, but there was no way she was younger than twenty-five. She was cute, not stunning like Rose, but exceptionally pretty in her own right. He found himself giving her a lazy half smile when he extended her hand, "Sam Winchester."

Dean gave her a grin, "Dean."

Ellie smiled cordially, her voice was bright and sunny, much like her demeanor, "Hey, nice to meet you. My full name is Eleanor, but if you call me that I might actually have to start hunting people," no accent to her voice, she was American born, "I've heard of you boys, your reputation precedes you."

"We get that a lot," Sam said with a small laugh. Something about her brightness was infectious. Ellie stepped over to Rose and leaned against her elbows on the counter while the two of them leafed through the book. It was like seeing the personification of night and day, bright Ellie and dark Rosewitha. Grayson was some sort of intermediary between the two of them, a casual sort of neutrality that existed between their extreme differences.

"So what is this, like your command center?" Dean walked slowly through the common area and took note of everything they had with them, "Some of this stuff I haven't ever seen," he said, lifting up a picture of a creature he didn't recognize.

"Home base, yeah. You probably haven't seen these things because these things don't normally exist here," Ellie said, hoisting herself onto the counter and watching him over her shoulder.

"Eleanor," Grayson said firmly. She held up her hands in defeat and shrugged.

"What do you mean they don't exist over here?" Sam said, furrowing his eyebrows in curiosity. He walked around and lifted one of the books off the kitchen table. He hadn't even heard Rose move, but she was in front of him snatching the book back with a harsh glare.

"We invited you here to teach you how to purge a bean sidhe, not meddle in our affairs." She said coldly, it was the most emotion she had exhibited since they met her.

The room went quiet for a moment before she thrust the book she had pulled from the drawer towards him, finger marked on a particular page, "This is what you need to know."

Sam took the book and sat on the couch, Dean sat next to him and they poured over the old pages together.

"Nightshade, burning sage, the sigil of Odin, and a few choice words and it will purge itself," Grayson said calmly, "But it has to be performed under a half-moon."

"So tomorrow night?" Sam said, looking up from the book. Grayson nodded slowly.

"It looks like we'll be meeting you back at the house tomorrow then," Rosewitha plucked the book from them, "These things are created by something, they don't make themselves. My best guess would be an amateur necromancer back in the forties. We will worry about that part, though."

"An amateur necromancer?"

"Yes." Ellie chimed in.

"In Oklahoma?"

"Why not? They pop up all over the place. Tortured teens and bored twentysomethings who find an old book and some candles. Poof, instant necromancer in training." She gesticulated the poof for emphasis.

"Eleanor!" Grayson raised his voice at her, breaking the guise of neutral calm he had perfected.

She tossed her hands up again and made a face, "So prickly today."

Dean couldn't help himself, he let out a slight laugh. Sam covered his smile with a hand, it was like watching them scold a child.

"We will meet you at the house again tomorrow evening, just before midnight. You can watch how to get rid of this thing first hand," Grayson said, looking back at Sam and Dean with his composure regained so quickly they both thought they imagined it.

"That's the social cue for you to get out," Rose said coldly.

Ellie's face scrunched up in distaste at Rose, "Rosie, you're so particularly rude this evening," she turned back to the Winchesters with a warm smile, "What she meant to say is thank you for dropping in, your eagerness to help is endearing. We are anticipating our reunion shortly and we bid you adieu."

Sam and Dean got to their feet slowly, Sam exhaled and looked at his brother who shrugged, "Well, tomorrow night then I guess." He shook Ellie's hand and nodded to Rosewitha – who had crossed her arms over her chest – and Grayson, who graciously opened the door to usher them out.

They walked down the hall, Dean shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, "They're a weird group."

"And Garth knows these people?" Sam sighed and shook his head. They got into the car and started to head back to their motel.

"They're hiding something," came Castiel's voice, "That woman, Rosewitha, something isn't right about her."

Dean frowned at him in the rear view mirror, "What do you mean? She seems all right to me, just a little weird."

"I can't explain it, something just isn't right about her. Humans have a way about them that makes them clearly human. She has that part, but," Cas's eyebrows knit together while he tried to put his finger on it, "There's something else there, too. She isn't inhuman, something is just wrong with her."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. They were alone in the car again, back in the hotel, and Sam pulled out his laptop. He started typing, searching the word 'bean sidhe', just to confirm everything they had told them. It wasn't that Sam or Dean didn't trust them, just that Castiel had made them both uneasy.

In the morning, Sam was already back to searching, Dean pulled his shirt over his head and ran a hand through his hair, "You found anything else on them?"

"It all checks out," Sam looked up at him, "Everything they said all seems pretty legit."

A knock at the door made them both jump, Dean immediately drew his handgun and got close to the door. Someone knocked at it again, harder this time. Sam got to his feet and rested his hand on his .45. Dean slowly opened the door, his brother's view too obscured to see anything except the tension fall from Dean's shoulders.

A cheerful voice came from around the door, "I'm here to take you shopping. Master's orders," Ellie pushed the door open with her boot and walked inside, looking around, "You guys stay in some seriously shitty hotels."

She was wearing a black and white leather motorcycle jacket, a matching helmet in her hand. She had shoved the gloves in the helmet and placed it on the table, smiling at Sam, "Good morning!"

Dean sighed and holstered his gun, "Shopping? Like for new suits?"

"No, dorkus, for black chalk and nightshade," she reached over and snatched the box of cereal Sam had been snacking on, grabbed a handful, and hoisted herself to sit on the table, "You boys ready or need a bit more time to put on your makeup?"

"I guess not," Sam sighed and closed the laptop, grabbing his jacket.

Dean did the same and gave Ellie the once over, "Are you coming with us?"

"Well I certainly can't fit three of us on a motorcycle," she hopped to the floor and shed her jacket, a dark red sweatshirt underneath was emblazoned with some logo across the chest. She shoved her hands in the pockets and followed them down to the Impala.

Dean pulled up to the small grocery store and Ellie was already out and walking before he had finished parking, he climbed out and jogged after her with Sam hot on his heels, "So you think we can find all this stuff here?"

She let out a small laugh, "Absolutely not. But they'll at least have some black chalk, that's a start. We can find some nightshade at one of those kooky hippie shops, there's one a few miles out of town." Ellie walked into the store and hunted down the chalk. Dean and Sam stayed outside while she got what she needed.

"This girl is a little crazier than the rest of them," Dean growled under his breath, "Cute, but kind of a pain in the ass."

"Could be worse, at least she's friendly," Sam kicked at a rock, looking up when the doors squealed open.

Ellie walked out holding a small bag triumphantly, "Start your engines, gentlemen, we're going to a naturopath!"

When Ellie had said the place was a few miles out, what she had really meant was a five hour drive out. Dean spent the better part of the trip questioning what her concept of 'a few miles' actually was. The woman at the counter had given her a strange look when she asked for nightshade, not powdered, and whole sage.

"It's for my cough," Ellie said, opening her eyes wide and setting her lips in a pout.

The woman gave them what they wanted and ushered them on their way. It was well after dark by the time they got back into Mooreville, after nine when they got back to the Winchester's motel. Dean parked the Impala and Ellie waited until the car had stopped before climbing out, taking the bags with her. She walked upstairs with the two of them quietly, had spent ten hours in a car with them quietly, and now shrugged on her gear quietly.

"I'll meet you both at the house in a couple of hours. Do _not_ forget to bring those bags with you," Ellie pointed a stern finger at Sam, then to Dean, "Don't be late."

She left, a few moments later they heard the roar of the engine. Sam pushed the curtains back into the parking lot and saw a white sport bike moving out of the lot. When she turned, he saw the word 'Triumph' emblazoned across the gas tank, then she opened the throttle and took off.

"Why did she come all the way out here to pick stuff up and then just leave it?" he turned, asking Dean.

Dean stared at the bags, "Dunno, maybe she wanted to keep an eye on us."

"Or make sure her partners don't blow us off," Sam surmised, "She's not like Grayson and Rosewitha, she doesn't have that same creepy vibe around her. I don't know," he sat down on the foot of his bed, "All three of them are weird."

Castiel was standing in the corner when Dean looked up, "What do you think, Cas? You think we're in over our heads here?"

"I asked around, Rosewitha Reed is widely known among some circles, but not others. She has a reputation," Castiel was pensive, "I don't know much yet, nobody else seems to know anything other than who she is."

"So she's got a reputation," Dean nodded, "That can be a good thing. It can also be something catastrophically bad. We'll go tonight and see what they're about, we don't have a choice. Garth says they're okay, so that's got to be something."

"How are you so cool about all of this?" Sam asked.

"I ain't got a choice, Sammy. Garth said there's a boom in these weird things, it's a good thing for us to know how to kill them." Dean stuck an extra magazine in his back pocked and double-checked his gun.

"There has been an odd series of disturbances, like demon signs, but without any demons present," Castiel said, "I'm feeling presences I've never felt before, like a pull of an old spirit. It's difficult to put into terms for a human to understand, but it's obvious not everything is as it should be."

They decided to go, Castiel agreed to stay in the background in case something went catastrophically awry. By the time they pulled up to the house, the trio of hunters stood on the porch. Grayson lifted a hand and gave the Winchesters a cordial smile, Dean returned the wave hesitantly, "I really hope they're not crazy cannibal hill people."

Rosewitha turned and smiled at them, too, a striking sight to behold. Her hair was loose and fell in long rivers of dark ink over her shoulders and into the fur-lined hood of her coat, "Evening, little brothers."

"Evening," Sam said defensively, nodding to Grayson and giving Ellie a two-fingered wave.

She smiled at him and waved back enthusiastically, "Hey! Did you guys remember the stuff?" Dean handed her the bags, "Great, let's get inside and kill ourselves some bean sidhe!" Too enthusiastically, Ellie skipped up the steps.

"Is she always like that?" Dean asked Rose in a low voice.

"Yes," she let out a small laugh, "I find it quite endearing, it just takes some getting used to. She supplements all the dark matter in her life with extroversion."

They walked inside, Ellie had already pulled back the rug and pushed the furniture away to expose the wood floor underneath. She was on her hands and knees with the chalk, drawing sigils neither Sam nor Dean recognized ringed in runes. A slow scraping sounded overhead and she paused, her face grew serious, "We've got to work faster. Sam, grab the sage and separate it into three bundles, light an edge on fire and let them smolder." She started to draw faster, what Sam recognized as runes were etched in black chalk rimming the sigils in a square.

Ellie got to her feet and fished out the nightshade and a shallow black cast iron bowl, crumbling the dried herb into it and pouring some grain alcohol into the leaves. She lit it on fire with a butane lighter and it burst into flames, burning out into a wet ashy paste in a matter of moments. The scratching above turned into heavy, thumping footsteps starting towards the stairs.

Grayson frowned and looked at Rosewitha, "Are you ready, Rose?"

"As ever," she shrugged the jacket off her shoulders, a dark green and black shirt with a design in white that could have been a band logo took its place. Dean caught the edge of tattoo on her upper left arm in a script he didn't recognize.

Dean took a few steps into the room when Ellie signaled to him, she glanced behind him and inhaled sharply. The bean sidhe had reached the bottom of the steps and was staring at Grayson. Grayson took a few steps backward, drawing his arms wide in a challenge to the thing.

Sam had gone to stand behind Dean and rested his hand on his gun, Ellie's fingers touched his and she shook her head, "You're here to watch, not to participate."

The brothers exchanged a look of mild annoyance and Sam lifted his hand in defeat. They turned their attention back to the creature slowly walking after Grayson. He stepped back again and drew the creature into the room. As it moved, its steps got slower and slower, like it was stepping into molasses, and the thing let out an unearthly scream. It's nose twitched wildly under the sage and it's eyes started to droop down, the second scream was quieter, like it was falling asleep. The Winchesters stared at it, not knowing what to say. Finally, Grayson stepped away and Rosewitha walked in front of the creature with the bowl of ashen paste. She started to whisper to herself and dipped her fingers in the bowl, smearing them across the creature's face and chest.

"_Créatúr Bréan den saol eile, créatúr an dorchadais agus eagla. Ordaímse duit amach as an áit, ordaímse duit a thabhairt ar ais as an doimhneacht de ifreann ó nuair a tháinig tú. Fill ar do rí dorcha, filleadh ar do rí dorcha. Codladh, ollphéist uafásach, dul chuig an deannaigh as a raibh déanta agat._" Rosewitha's voice carried softly, speaking words they didn't understand in a language they had never heard.

"What is that?" Sam asked Grayson quietly.

"Irish Gaelic," he said flatly, watching her work.

Something shuddered in the beast, its eyes snapped open and it let out a strangled wheeze. Slowly, it's limbs stopped moving and began to pour away from Rose's grasp like sand. She made a sign with her fingers in the air so swift it was impossible to see what it was, "_Máthair Mhór, tá sé déanta._"

Rosewitha got to her feet and turned to them, "Do you need me to write it down for you?"

Sam stared at her, open-mouthed, and nodded, "Uh, yeah. I didn't really catch all that."

She nodded once and reached into her back pocket, plucking out a small, thick booklet and handed it to him, "This has it all in there. How to get rid of bean sidhe, gancanagh, kelpie, and fear gorta. They're the four things we've come across that you probably haven't even heard of before."

"Thanks," Sam took the booklet and leafed through it, staring at the old woodblock-style depictions of all four. In the back were three numbers, "This is you?"

"Yes," she nodded, "Grayson's is on top, I'm in the middle, Ellie is at the bottom. If you encounter something that isn't in this book, you get out of there and you call one of us."

Ellie clapped her hands on both of their backs, "Now we let the sage burn down to keep the room clean and we get on our merry way," she stepped between them and Grayson and Rose stepped with her. Grayson paused and turned to them, "Be careful out there, I'm afraid something is happening that we aren't completely in the loop on yet."

Sam and Dean didn't say goodbye, nor did they see them leave the house and into or onto their respective vehicles. They did hear the engines roar to life and fade off down the road.

Castiel walked into the house and stared at the pile of dust on the floor, "I can believe they're hiding something," he crouched and ran his hand over the chalk lettering, "These are old Celtic runes. That's not a Norse symbol, though. She lied when she called it a sigil of Odin."

"What is it then?" Dean asked.

"It's called the serpent and rod, long ago it was referred to as Ceangailteacha de Badb or Binding of Badb. It's meant to work as a Devil's Trap, but against a different type of creature," Castiel got to his feet, "These creatures everyone keeps talking about aren't from the realm of God."

"Where else would they be from? Everything awful stems from hell," Dean said loudly, walking over to stare at the runes.

"Not true. There are other portals full of other creatures that aren't created by God or by Lucifer, this creature comes out of the realm of Tuatha De Danann. The hand of God and the hand of Lucifer cannot extend into that world, it is much older than ours and full of monsters we've never seen before," Castiel looked up at Dean and shook his head, "You don't want to get involved with these things."

"What brought them here?" Sam said, more rhetorically than intending to get an answer, he knew nobody in that room had the answer to his question. There were people who did, though, "I think we should go after them. Find out what this is all about. If it's going to start affecting us here, we have a right to know."

"I would be interested in knowing more about this Rosewitha," Castiel said, looking to Dean. Ultimately, Dean would decide where they went this time, Sam and Cas could only give him their preference.

He sighed and looked from one to the other and threw up his hand, "This is bat-shit crazy, we shouldn't be stalking hunters like this. We should be trying to hunt down this Metatron guy." he turned back to them with his hands on his waist and made a face, "Fine. Fine! But if we get word on Metatron we back off this tail and get back on track."

He didn't wait for a response, Dean shoved past Sam and Castiel and headed to the car himself. Sam sat down and shut the door, "Do we even know where to start looking for them?"  
"They went west." Dean said, turning the ignition and getting the car into gear.

Then they were off. Beginning some detour goose chase for what may or may not end up being worth either of their time. Dean was not exactly happy about it, but he would admit to himself alone that his interest was piqued by the whole thing. It would be an interesting change from standard demons, shape shifters, djinn, and ghosts.


	2. Do Not Leave Children Unattended

**A/N:**I'm trying to get a setup going, next chapter I will probably focus on the three original characters to flesh them out and make them less of a vague blob of amorphism. School is in session right now, so I don't have a lot of time between research papers, but I'm working on it.

**Chapter 2: Do Not Leave Children Unattended**

Sam rubbed his eyes tiredly and stared down at the map in front of him, "I know they came this way, why haven't we seen them?"

"How hard can it be to spot a little blond girl on a motorcycle and two foreigners with accents?" Dean sighed with irritation, "They didn't just disappear."

"I guess Rosewitha drives faster than we thought, it's the only thing that makes sense," Sam folded up the map in exchange for the local paper, sifting through the stories looking for something abnormal that might point them in the right direction.

Dean sighed and leaned back in the red plastic diner booth, taking a long drink from his cup of coffee and scanning the room, "How did we even lose them? There's _one freeway_. In any direction."

Sam paused and shook the paper to straighten it out, laying it down on the table top and pointing to a small blurb, almost a passing thought in the paper, "Hey, take a look,"

Dean leaned over his finger and scanned the words, "Drastic spike in child drownings?" he looked up at his brother and made a face, "That's weird enough to catch my attention."

"Idabel, Oklahoma," Sam said. They got up and dropped some cash on the table for the coffee, starting up the Impala and heading down to the freeway, towards Idabel. It was considered a big city, by Oklahoma standards, but still small and middle-of-nowhere.

The car pulled into the driveway of a small craftsman-style home in what was probably the nicer part of the neighborhood a few hours later. They got out and walked towards the front door, Dean knocked and a middle aged woman opened the door slowly, "Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually, Miss Weatherbee. I'm Dean Cromwell, this is Samuel Tombs. We're reporters for the Oklahoma Lone Star paper, we had some questions about your son?" He tried to look sympathetic, placing a pen behind his ear and pulling a small palm notepad from his back pocket. Sam, unprepared, just shoved his hands in his pockets.

The woman, Elaine Weatherbee, sniffled hard and it was evident she was going to cry, "Oh, um, sure. Come in," she opened the door wider and let them inside.

They sat in her sparse living room and graciously accepted glasses of sweet tea. Dean waited for her to get situated before leaning forwards, "So I just wanted to follow up on the article done a day or so ago. When your son, uh, drowned….did you notice anything strange beforehand? Did he mention playing with any kids or see anything odd?"

The woman's face twisted in confusion for a second, "Um, he did mention seeing a young man by the shore, but I didn't see anyone other than us." The boy had drowned in a lake on a family camping trip, same as four others all within the last six months. The Parks Department had closed the lakeside campground until they could drag the lake for seaweed that they assumed was drowning the boys when they got snagged in it.

"Did he give you a description or say anything weird about the man?" Sam chimed in.

"Why is this important? It was just some imaginary friend, he said his name was Sean or something," Elaine gave them both a look, "He said Sean turned into a horse when he walked into the lake. I didn't really find that pertinent to tell the first reporter and now everyone is asking me about it." She seemed exasperated.

"Everyone?" Dean looked up.

"You're not the first reporters, you know. The other girl – she was very nice, a really charming young lady – took down all of this for the Idabel Inquirer," she sighed and sipped her glass of tea.

Sam and Dean exchanged looks and Sam cleared his throat, "Was she by any chance a tall woman with dark hair and a little bit of an Irish accent?"

"No," Elaine shook her head, "She was this petite blonde thing, really adorable. Is she important, too?"

"Uh, no. Just trying to scope out or competition for the story," Sam smiled, "Is that all? Did you hear him scream or anything at all? Thrashing?"

She shook her head, lifting her hand to her lips and taking a deep breath, "No, nothing. It was like he had walked right into the water and never even tried to come back up," tears rolled freely down her cheeks now, Dean closed the notepad and got to his feet slowly. They shook her hand and showed themselves out.

Sam looked at him when they got back in the car, "Well, we know they're here somewhere. It's something."

Dean put the car in gear and drove to the nearest cheap motel. They slumped their bags down on the twin beds and Sam sat at the table, propping a leg up on a chair while he combed over the tiny booklet that Rosewitha had given to him. He went through it three times before tossing it on the table.

"Nothing?" Dean asked, looking up from a magazine, "Damn. Well, we start with the obvious. Vengeful spirit like with the kid drowning people," he sat up and put the magazine down , "Let's go check county records for some drowning deaths before this, weird disappearances at the campground."

Sam shook his head slowly, "I don't know, Dean. It wasn't a drowning, there was no thrashing or noises made by the kids, it doesn't fit the m.o. of vengeful spirits. Plus, last time it turned out to be some terrifying creature we've never seen. I'm assuming of they're here it's not because this is a vengeful spirit."

"Good point. So what do you suggest we do?" Dean got to his feet and walked to the fridge, pulling a beer out and popping the cap off while he leaned against the closed fridge door.

Sam leaned forwards and ran his hand over his face, "I actually don't really know," he looked at his brother defeated, "Investigate water demons? Comb through thousands of years' worth of information on killer water creatures?"

There was a gentle knocking on the door, both of them stiffened immediately. Dean walked to the door slowly and opened it against the chain. He didn't say anything to the person on the other side of the door, just sighed heavily and closed it to undo the chain again. When Dean opened the door, a familiar young woman walked through confidently. Blonde hair had been tied in the back and to the side in a ponytail, intentionally curled. Ellie had her hands shoved in the pockets of a red double-breasted military jacket and dark jeans tucked into boots.

She smiled at Sam and turned around to pluck the beer from Dean's hand, "I have a question for you boys," she took a long drink and handed the beer back, "Why are you following us?"

The room was quiet for a moment following Ellie's question before Dean said, "Sam just thought you were so gorgeous he couldn't stand life without you, so we decided to track you down."

"Dean!" Sam shouted, letting his expression do the scolding, "What the hell?! That is not even true," the second part he said to Ellie, "Not that you're not gorgeous, you are, but that's not why we followed you."

Ellie was smiling broadly when she let out a slight laugh and unbuttoned her jacket. She shrugged it off and draped it over the back of a chair. Underneath she was wearing a sleeveless gray shirt tied in a tight knot at her belt line high up enough so when she stretched her stomach was visible, but low enough that it was still considered dress code appropriate at a local high school, twin prints of black and white crucifixes on either side of her chest.

She pulled the chair out and sat down, looking from one to the other, "So why are you here, then?"

Dean put the beer down on the table and sat with them, he hadn't touched it since Ellie took it from him, "We got wind of a bunch of strange drowning cases. Nothing to do with you, but if you're here I guess it might be," he tried to mask his white lie as best he could, but her eyes seemed to bore into him and slowly break down the facades of his story.

It was like Ellie read him like a book, but she suddenly grinned and shrugged, "Okay. Well, it is something to do with us. You guys can head out whenever," she was testing them, both of them knew it. Ellie made no move to leave and contented herself to switch her gaze from Winchester to Winchester. She reached out and took the beer again, draining the rest of it.

"I don't think you're going to get rid of us that easy," Dean gave her a challenging smile, trying to not be outraged she had completely ripped him out of a drink, "We're here to work on a case. If you want in on it," he shrugged, "you can always ask."

She was starting to get on his nerves, actually. Ellie's personality was extremely forward, she just waltzed in and helped herself with a big, stupid smile on her face like it was totally okay. Dean was actively suppressing the urge to smack the smile off her face.

Ellie shrugged and leaned back, "This kind stuff is two things, actually. The first is that it's first-come-first-serve, this has always been the hunters' unspoken code. Unless of course whoever got there first needs and asks for a partner, you guys know that. The second thing is that this is something I don't think you've even read about in fairy tales, you expect me to believe you're actually here to put this thing down?"

Sam frowned and folded his arms over his chest, "So Rosewitha is going to throw some plants at it and mutter a few things and it's going to disappear?" he and Ellie locked eyes, "A fried told us these creatures are some sort of spillage, some overflow that isn't supposed to be here."

Ellie's smile faded into a frown, "I should have guessed your angel buddies would do some digging for you," she got to her feet and started to walk slowly around the motel room, "Rose isn't here, neither is Gray. It's just me this time, they're taking care of other things."

"What kind of other things?" Sam knew the question was futile, but he asked anyway.

"Loose ends," she replied shortly, turning back to them, "I've got this whole case under control, I don't need a partner. You can take off when you're read."

Dean got to his feet and walked to her slowly, backing her against the wall. He placed his hands on his hips. "See, that's not really going to work for us. We leave when the case is solved."

She stared up at him defiantly, a full six inches shorter than him and eight shorter than Sam, but her expression was full of fire. At first, Ellie had seemed like sunshine, happy-go-lucky and positive. Really she was fiery and headstrong, stubborn to a fault, and pretty annoying, "Well then you better get started."

She shoved past him and grabbed her coat, taking a deep breath and smiling brightly before she headed towards the door, "I'm just here to remind you that you're not as slick as you think. Move on, Winchester boys, move on."

"We'll get right on that," Dean said, raising a hand in a wave as she closed the door, wiggling her fingers back at him. He sat down hard across from his brother, "I guess combing the library is the next step, then."

Sam sighed and rolled his head back, "Drop me off at the library and you go do whatever it is you're going to do."

The local library had extremely limited resources on old folk tales, but more than enough on creationism and Christian fiction. The down side of being stranded in a Midwestern town of under seven thousand people was the lack of religious diversity. Sam sat at a table and poured through the four books he had found on ancient fairy tales, but the most intriguing snippet he had found was an old Irish folktale of a creature that climbed out of the water and lured children in. It often took the shape of a man and changed into a horse, taking children on its back and keeping them there with adhesive skin. Sam suddenly remembered something and pulled the book Rosewitha gave them from his back pocket, flipping through the pages.

He paused on the third entry, "Kelpie," he whispered to himself.

"Isn't that a type of dog?" came a soft Irish accent from over his shoulder.

Sam jumped and looked up into Rosewitha's bright green eyes, her face broke into a smile at herself, "Jesus!" he whispered harshly.

"I couldn't resist," she pulled up a chair next to him, "Ellie says you boys are fairly dogged in your determination not to leave."

It was just a statement of fact, not a rhetorical question or otherwise. She stared at him so straightly he felt naked, "Ellie is right. We don't walk away from people getting killed."

"Neither do we. The only problem with that philosophy is that you don't know what you're doing," Rose's voice was quiet in the library, "Why are you following us?"

"Because," he sighed and fondled the book for a moment before meeting her gaze again, "I get the feeling this is more than a few stray creatures wandering overseas to us or a necromancer messing around in an Oklahoma."

She made no motion to expose if he was correct or not, "What does that have to do with following us around?"

"That feeling," Sam continued, "also tells me you know why they're here," she made no movement again, "and if it's something that has the potential to blow up, we should be involved. Ellie's heard of us, she knows that we're not any random hunters. We can help."

"No," Rosewitha said frostily, reaching forwards to slam the fairy tale book shut, "You can't. Stay out of our business, young Winchester. If you can pull the Kelpie out of the water before we do, you can have the glory of the hunt. Good luck." She rose and walked away, loose white shirt billowing a little under the air conditioning. Her hair fell down her back loose and wild, heels clicked on the tile floor with each slow step away from him.

Sam frowned and got up, striding after her, but paused when he opened the door. Ellie was leaning against the side of the Mustang and gesticulating harshly, Rosewitha was close to her and whispering, but her expression was hard and firm. Sam pressed himself against the side of the building, willing himself to be out of sight as he listened to the tail end of something heated.

"But they _can_ help us! You don't know anything about them!" Ellie's voice carried, but Rose had mastered the ability to keep her tone so low it didn't even get picked up by the breeze if she didn't want it to, "Just let me talk to them, we could use extra…Rose, you're being totally unreasonable right now. This problem is starting to get out of hand, this isn't just about us anymore…"

The conversation stopped and Sam peered around the corner at them, Rose was close to Ellie's face, but Ellie had turned away and looked down in defeat. She nodded once slowly and finally whipped her head around, whispering something he didn't catch and shoving herself into the passenger seat of the Mustang. Rosewitha sighed and stared at her through the window for a moment. She looked up and met Sam's gaze with a scowl, walking around to the other side of the car and getting in.

"A Kelpie?" Dean said, lowering the small book, "Isn't that a kind of dog?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Sam sighed, "Did you hear anything I said at all?"

"Yeah something about Rosewitha being up to something and it's getting crazy, I got you. How do we kill this thing?" Dean got up and put his jacket on.

Sam put up a hand to stop him, "We need to get a flask of water that has sat in the light of the moon, mix it with dried clover, and get the thing to drink it. The bottle has to have some old symbols on it, but Rosewitha drew them and I can scratch them on."

Dean paused and sighed, hanging his head, "So we have to sit around again?" Sam shrugged, "Get your stuff, let's just go to this stupid lake and find out how to pull this thing out of the water."

"We can get it to come out with either a child or a kid."

"Hate to break it to you, Sammy, but the difference between those two is marginal at best."

"No," Sam rolled his eyes, "Like a kid, a baby goat."

"If you don't know anyone willing to give up a child for the sake of luring out a mythical monster, we should find us a farm."

Sam brushed the shavings of glass off of the side of the Mason jar and rinsed it before filling it with water. He pulled back the curtains and situated the jar where it would be hit by moonlight for a majority of the night, "If this doesn't work, I'm going to be pissed."

Dean grunted and clicked through some channels on the TV for a while, "Hunting European monsters is boring."

"It's preparation is all. We also have no idea what we're doing so being prepared for this stuff isn't the same as being prepared for a Djinn or a ghost," Sam slumped down at the table and poured over the fairy tale book again for what seemed like the sixth or seventh time tonight.

"Yeah, well, if they would share their wealth of knowledge with us, we wouldn't be so unprepared," there was a note of bitterness in Dean's voice. Sam couldn't blame his brother, he wasn't so sure why none of the three odd hunters were sharing their issues with them either. Whatever it was had started to slip out of their control, Ellie had implied as much in her conversation at the library.

The following evening found the Impala pulling up to the edge of a lake twenty miles outside of Idabel, the sky was mottled with stars and everything seems completely black. Crickets chirped in the darkness and somewhere an owl hooted. They slammed their doors and the sound seemed to echo across the valley, Sam found himself feeling somewhat guilty for disturbing the night. The sound of water lapping lightly at the shore was gentle under their crunching footsteps in the night, there was no sign of the Mustang or of Ellie's motorcycle.

"Please let this work," Dean sighed at the sky as he placed a small baby goat on the grass that had spent the better part of its day bleating in the back seat of the Impala and being yelled at not to eat the seats.

They sat there and watched the baby goat graze for over an hour before Sam, leaning his chin on his hands while he sat on the grass, "Why is this so boring? All of this is boring. Let's go back to hunting demons."

Dean grunted in affirmation, then seemed to snap to attention. Something was moving across the lake, quickly. It collided on their side of the shore, the Winchesters slowly got to their feet and Sam produced the bottle of water, "How do we make it drink?" he whispered.

Dean stared at him dumbly, "You're the one with the book, how should I know?"

Two wet slopping sounds drew their attention back to the goat. A man, shimmering with water and beautiful in the prime of his youth, walked slowly towards the baby goat. Its unnatural looking eyes fixed on the creature, its mouth open just enough so Sam could see it salivating. He grimaced, "I guess we just jump it."

Dean let out a should and the creature's head snapped up to him, it charged him as he charged it. They struck each other with a loud smack that knocked the wind out of Dean. Sam raised his pistol and fired it at the Kelpie, from two small holes in its back poured what looked like brackish water. It let out a strange gurgling noise and rushed Sam, Dean wheezing on the ground while the little goat grazed on undeterred. The Kelpie wrapped unusually long fingers around Sam's neck and lifted him off his feet. It's skin stuck to him like fly paper, it began to walk slowly to the water.

Dean rolled onto his stomach and fumbled for his gun, "Hey," he croaked, "Hey, asshole!"

The Kelpie ignored him and continued to walk, its feet slid easily into the water and Sam could have sworn they started to change into fins or tentacles. There was a loud blasting noise from off to their right and the creature dropped Sam in the shallow water, he landed on his feet only ankle-deep in the murky lake water. The Kelpie howled or crooned angrily and turned to the source of the sound, it had raking marks across its arm that oozed brackish water.

Ellie stood with a shotgun aimed at the creature, staring it down as it started to walk briskly towards her, picking up its pace into a jog and then a run. She fired the gun again and the Kelpie screamed this time, stumbling forwards. A black blur leaped from one of the thickets and crashed onto the beast's chest.

Rosewitha had launched herself at it and kicked it hard in the chest with her shins, so hard it toppled onto its back with her still sitting on top of it. It thrashed under her and she put her hand on its chest, "Bí go fóill," she muttered.

The Kelpie immediately stopped moving, but its eyes roved wildly over the woods. Sam sloshed out of the water and hoisted Dean to his feet, Ellie trotted over to them and touched his shoulder before he swatted her away, "Be that way," she grumbled.

The creature's gaze fixed on Rose as she straightened up and it began, surprisingly, to laugh, "You," it said in a bubbling voice, like it were talking through a bubble screen.

"It can talk?" Sam supported his brother and looked at Ellie, she just shrugged and nodded.

"He knows, Rosewitha Reed," the thing laughed again, "He knows you're looking for him."

"Bí adh," she commanded, "Or so help me I will silence you myself."

The Kelpie cackled again, "You can't spend your eternity chasing him around. There's no way to fix it, medicine óga. You can't change it."

"Nuair a rá liom a bheith ciúin, beidh tú a bheith ciúin," her voice was so cold in that moment it made Sam take a step back, his skin bristled as though the temperature had actually changed.

The creature said nothing, it just stared at her with a venomous grin on its face. Rose scowled at it and leaned close to its unnatural face, "You can tell him Rosewitha ag teacht dó."

There was a glint of something silver under the moonlight, it was so fast Dean hadn't been able to tell it was a knife until he saw the same ugly water gushing from a gaping wound across the Kelpie's throat. Rosewitha got to her feet and watched the water flood from its wound, its body began to shrivel until it was just skin on bones, then slowly crumbled to dust.

Dean looked up at her, "That wasn't how you told us to kill it in your book."

She glanced up at him and wiped the blade on her sleeve, "If you had bothered to read it all, yes it was," Rosewitha held up the knife so he could see it, etched with scrawling Celtic symbols, "Silver, of course. As long as you get its throat, the Kelpie dies."

Sam was watching her warily, "Who are you hunting?"

His question hung in the air, it seemed for a moment time had stopped moving with how frozen Rose had become. She whirled around and pointed the tip of the blade at him - not as a threat, just as an indication, "What language do I have to use to get you to stay out of our business. This isn't anything to do with you, go back to cavorting with angels and throwing water at demons. This is no place for an American hunter, not even a Winchester."

She didn't give either of them a chance to respond, just stormed off in the direction she had come. Rose stopped only to pick up the small goat, not even a look backwards, and paused at the treeline, "Eleanor." She said firmly, it was a command.

Ellie didn't follow Rose's movements with her gaze the way the Winchesters did, she stared at the ground for a moment before looking up at them with a sharp smile. Something about it was almost pleading, "Well, thanks for drawing it out for us."

"You used us?" Dean said, realizing they had probably planted the bit about the goat at some point. He was genuinely insulted.

Ellie shrugged again, "Dog eat dog world out there," she pulled her hand out of her pocket and extended her hand to Sam, "Many thanks. You be safe."

He released her hand slowly and watched her walk away, palming the scrap of paper she had passed covertly to him until Rose and Ellie were out of sight. Sam plucked it out of his palm and unfolded it, elbowing his brother, "Dean, I know where they're going next."

"How could you possibly know that?" Dean sighed, pausing in his trek back to the Impala. He was agitated, skeptical, and fed up with these increasingly creepy looking creatures popping out of the woodwork.

Sam held up the paper. It was a column about a murder in a locked house, a husband and a wife, and their daughter had been intentionally locked in a closet. The daughter, in her short moment of fame, claimed it was a woman who appeared out of nowhere. She told the girl she had no issue with her and locked her away to be safe.

The murder itself was ghastly, the man had his chest pried open and his heart nailed to a wall above his head. The wife was strung up with her own intestines. A neighbor had stopped by, concerned when their daughter didn't show for their carpool, and found them the next morning.

Dean took the paper and read it over, looking up at his brother, "Lockwood, Montana."

That was that, they stopped by the motel and threw their things into the Impala shortly before dawn and got on the road. Sam stared at the article, "Why does she want me to know where they're going?"

"Because both of them are a little bit crazy," Dean said, knuckles white on the steering wheel, "These things are scary, Sam. We gotta keep a better eye out when we're going after them, we don't know what we're up against."

Sam looked over at him and touched his own throat lightly, Dean hadn't mentioned he was worried then the Kelpie took Sam. He smiled slightly, "All right, be more careful. I guess we need to start carrying some silver daggers around, too. Most of these things can be killed with a specific etching on a dagger," it was strange, he had read the book three or four times, but this was the first he had seen that part.

As he stared at the book in his hand, Sam realized it was thicker than before, one more creature had been added to it: Siabhar. There was a crude sketch of a creature with a twisted face, wrapped in purple cloth so only two eyes were completely visible. It defined itself as a Demon and delved into the symbols needed to contain it and the methods by which it could be killed.

He took out the scrap of article again and turned it over. A phone number had been lightly sketched on the back, no message, but he knew it was Ellie's. Sam pulled out his phone and sent it a text message: _Ellie?_

In the Mustang, Ellie's phone cheeped. Rose was silent behind the wheel, they two of them were deeply at odds about what was going in. Ellie insisted that the Winchesters could help, but Rose was convinced that this wasn't something they could help her with.

"If you would give them all the information instead of feeding it to them piece by piece, maybe they could be useful," Ellie protested.

"No," Rose said firmly, "Out of the question."

Ellie slid her thumb across the screen and flicked the switch to silence her phone, she replied: _You got my message._

The phone buzzed again, but she ignored it, "Rosie, what do you think will happen when we find him?"

"It. I will not give that creature the honor of assigning it a human characteristic. I don't know," she shook her head, "Make him tell me how to get rid of this curse, I suppose."

"What if he doesn't," Ellie absently traced a line of dust in the window, "What if you stay the same forever? You lose me and Gray."

Rose was silent for a moment, she had felt her voice catch in her throat, "Don't talk like that."

"It's possible. We could use someone like them, you know."

"Is that why you told them where we were going?" Rose ignored Ellie's tightened expression, "I know everything you do, little dove. I know you want the best for everyone, but I don't want any more people to die because of me. We've lost enough good men and women over fixing me," Rose's hand reached out and patted Ellie's reassuringly, "I promised your mother and father I wouldn't let you die over my personal quest, I mean to extend that promise to everyone."

Ellie stared out the window absently, she let out a heavy sigh and forced her mind away from the daunting task at hand, "When are we picking up Gray?"

"On the way to Montana, he had business with Garth," Rose bit her lower lip. She was anxious, suddenly, like something wasn't right at all. Those feelings in anyone else would have gone ignored and passed over, but Rosewitha was something else entirely. She didn't ignore those gut feelings of anxiety because they weren't normally wrong. This was something she didn't share with Ellie, however.

Ellie reached over and turned on the radio, reclining in the seat and closing her eyes slowly. She listened to the soft breath of the baby goat in the back seat, "What do we plan to do with the goat?"

Rosewitha just shrugged, despite the fact that Ellie couldn't see her.

Ellie lifted her phone up again and checked the message: _When do we get answers._

_When the time comes._ It was against her own personal judgement, but she had agreed with Grayson that this wasn't her decision to make. Too much had changed in the world over the last twenty years for Rosewitha, explaining herself had actively become a dangerous thing. She would be stereotyped and killed just because she came clean about what she really was, especially with people as burned as the Winchester brothers had been, at least according to stories.

She gazed at the sky through the window and tried to calm her own sickening feeling of dread. Something terrible was coming, like it was sitting just out of sight behind the horizon. Ellie didn't notice when she fell asleep, she missed the message from Sam: _What are you?_


End file.
